Professional Painting
by Gray Doll
Summary: In the absence of very hard cases to solve, the CBI agents need to find other ways to occupy themselves.


**notes: **Uh... I still have no idea what this is, where it came from, or anything like that. I only know that it happened. Don't take it too seriously, people. It's the product of coffee overdose, and contemplating art classes. ...yeah.

* * *

**Professional Painting**

In the absence of very hard cases that feel more like riddles only Patrick Jane can solve, Gale Bertram realizes that he needs to find new ways to keep his bored agents occupied; when he decides to establish an art class for all CBI agents, everyone cringes inwardly but no-one disagrees, because he's the boss, after all, and he has all the power in the world.

(Patrick Jane would of course object to this absurd idea and would find a way to make his boss's life miserable, or maybe he would jump with excitement at the endless possibilities of chaos ensuing. He would do one of those things, if he wasn't running rogue somewhere in Arizona, thinking he has a lead on Red John.)

**.**

**.**

In the absence of interesting people to kill, and with his old friend Patrick hunting shadows in the deserts and faking breakdowns, and because he has a very artistic nature, Red John (under the absolutely not glaring pseudonym Russel Blythe) decides to apply for the post of Arts Teacher at the CBI.

Gale's secretary is more than willing to give him an interview; charm, he has found over the years, is the key to everything when you're dealing with all kinds of women. The director himself, however, is a bit trickier to manage.

"I'm sorry, Mr Blythe," he says, leaning forward and folding his hands together on the desk in a gesture that is probably meant to assert his authority but makes him look slightly constipated instead. "But I'm afraid I'm going to have to see your qualifications. And, no offense, but I can't understand why my secretary even gave you an interview without doing that herself first."

He flashes the director a big grin. "I'm in a _suit_, Mr Bertram. I'm positively ravishing. I just get everyone to do whatever I want. Don't question it."

**.**

**.**

A few hours later, when the building is nearly empty and the lights have dimmed, Rigsby slumps down on his chair and shakes his head. "You've _got_ to be kidding me. I thought Bertram only meant this as a joke!"

VanPelt gestures for him to be quiet, but there really is no need; the four of them are, after all, the only ones left here at this time of hour. They always are; case breakthroughs always happen after midnight, after all.

"This is ridiculous," Lisbon huffs, folding her arms about her chest. "And what is this new guy anyway? Are we _seriously_ going to attend art classes?"

Cho doesn't say anything, stays silent and stoic instead, and everyone knows what that means.

"And where the hell is Jane, anyway?"

**.**

**.**

The night before the first class, Red John visits Rosalind, who isn't blind at all but it's all merely an act for the police, even though no-one ever bothered to spend more than a few minutes on her despite knowing she's been in a relationship with him for _years_.

So he visits her, because he knows it's completely safe.

"What do you think?" he asks her as she sits down on the couch, looking up at him with a frown creasing her forehead.

"I think you've gone mad," she says, and brings the teacup to her lips. "Madder than the CBI boss."

"I would appreciate a little positive reinforcement, Rosie," he says, shaking his head, and then gives a small twirl. "Well? Do you like it?"

Rosalind's eyes widen, and the teacup nearly drops from her hand. "Are you... are you joking?"

He furrows his brow in defense. "Why? I think it looks rather good. Besides, it's Emilio Pucci, love. It's expensive, it fits perfectly-"

"It's a _turtleneck_."

He nods. "It is."

Rosalind's mouth opens and closes, and she shakes her head. "You can't go out like this!"

"It's _elegant_, Rosie."

"It's not elegant, it's- God, I don't even know what it is! What's next, cigarettes and berets and bringing your Apple laptop to Starbucks?"

He rolls his eyes and rummages through her closet that the CBI agents haven't bothered to search, and that's a good thing because there are many of his own clothes in there as well. Once he finds it, he puts on the blazer and grins widely at her when he reappears in the living room.

"Better now, love?"

This time she does drop the teacup, and its contents get spilled all over the coffee table. He almost lets out a squeal, because he's the one who bought that table, and for God's sake, that was _mahogany_.

**.**

**.**

In his first lesson, Red John shows a slideshow to the agents slash students, and ends up raging about post-impressionism.

"Just _look_ at this," he hisses, pointing a very mad hand at the van Gogh on the screen. "It is absolutely ridiculous! No sense of style or form, no class, no meaning, and what is with all those yellows and blues? Who would ever mix all those colors together? It it at least _tacky. _What happened to elegance, to beautiful portraits and beiges and reds, what the fuck _happened_?_"_

Lisbon stares. "Oh my _God_," she manages to utter. "Oh. My. God."

Rigsby has his face buried in his hands, and Cho is still as though carved from glass splinters, but his eyes look tortured.

VanPelt is horrified. "Why are we even here? Why is this even _happening_? Why did the director do this? Why-"

"This is _unbelievable_," Blythe carries on. "Perhaps the only good thing this ginger fuck ever did was shoot off his ear. Just look at this! This is _not_ how you _paint._"

"Okay, now this is just embarrassing," Jane says quietly, and everyone around him (that is Lisbon, Rigsby and VanPelt) jumps, starts, and stares.

Lisbon's eyes widen in shock, then widen even more in denial, then narrow in frustration. "Where did you even come from?"

Jane shrugs, like he's only been two blocks away to buy smoke.

But Lisbon carries on. "I can't believe you have the nerve to show up like that after months, like nothing ever happened, I thought we were partners, and friends, and if you think I'm going to forgive you this time you're-"

Jane lifts a finger to hush her. "Shh, Lisbon, you don't want professor McCrazy to start yelling at you. Let him take it out on Van Gogh only."

Lisbon huffs and puffs, shaking her head, and Jane grins because that's just what Jane does. "But seriously," he says after a while, "this _is_ embarrassing. I can't believe I've spent a decade trying to out-manoeuvre this guy."

VanPelt furrows her brow. "What do you mean?"

Jane just shrugs. "Oh, nothing, really. At this point I'm just suspecting."

"Suspecting what?"

But Jane lifts up a finger again, because Mr Blythe is now pacing furiously up and down the room, glaring at the agents slash students and the painting on the screen in turn. "If I see any of you doing anything like this abomination in my class, I'll-"

**.**

**.**

Gale Bertram frowns, setting down his papers. "'I'll cut you up so badly you'll have chins.' _Mr Blythe_."

Red John tilts his head to the side, folding his hands together on his lap and looking positively angelic. "Yes?"

The director clears his throat, and repeats it. "'_I'll cut you up so badly you'll have chins_.'"

"Yes," Red John says, smiling a little. "It is an expression of polite displeasure. In Georgian English. You'll be interested to know that William Blake, the famous poet-"

"Mr Blake used this phrase in his poems, Mr Blythe?"

Red John's smile grows slightly tight, because hell, this is harder than charming a woman. And he does _not_ appreciate being interrupted while talking. Especially while talking about Blake. "Well, not exactly, director, but-"

"This will be enough, Mr Blythe. Make sure this never happens again."

The same night, one of his cronies huffs and puffs as he's shoving the director's dead body into a van, his air sticking to his sweaty forehead. "I don't get it, boss," he chokes out. "Why not cut him up and do your smiley thing instead of... this?"

"I do not pay you to ask questions," Red John says with all the authority he can muster, and it surely is a lot of authority.

The goon shakes his head, thinking that he doesn't get paid at all.

**.**

**.**

"Okay, where the hell is Bertram?" Teresa asks him two days later, looking up at him with her green eyes blazing.

"He's been temporarily misplaced," he replies and gives her an easy grin, and is more than startled to realize that she doesn't seem very affected.

**.**

**.**

Rosalind isn't very pleased with his progress, and he can't, for the life of him, figure out why. There are times when she looks ready to set fire to his drawings, and two weeks into his teaching streak, he comes home to find a very angry Rosalind and a very serious-looking Bret Stiles waiting for him in the living room.

"My dear friend," Bret says, "I believe it is high time I intervened."

Rosalind nods enthusiastically, her arms folded together. "And the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. A very serious one."

Bret gestures to his outfit. "That, is an abomination. I cannot fathom what persuaded you to don this monstrosity."

Rosalind nods again, even more vigorously. "Well, I did try to talk him out of it. And God, Mr Stiles, look at him! He's wearing a _turtleneck_ and teaching CBI agents how to _finger paint_!"

Bret chokes a little at that, but restores his very admonishing, very serious facade in the blink of an eye. "Your _friends,_" he says pointedly, "are going to look at you and cringe, _Roy_. How do you think they will react when they find out their Messiah is dressing like a Starbucks squatter and teaching... art classes?"

Rosalind sighs. "You know, darling, this is just wrong. I feel like I'm in a relationship with a girl in college. It won't be long before you start taking me out to Communist gatherings and trying to persuade me to experiment with lesbianism. And the hemp can't be far away, either."

"I found out, just this morning, that you stashed an agent in the janitor's closet for using impasto," Bret says in a hard voice, and Red John rolls his eyes.

"I am not that cruel. It was the storage room."

Rosalind throws her hands up in the air. "Roy, darling, this has to _stop_."

"But I'm doing big things with the students!"

"They are _CBI agents_," Bret says, quirking an eyebrow. "And you are not Antonio Banderas in a dancing movie. You should stop this... I do not even know how to call it."

Red John makes a very offended sound. "You just don't appreciate anything."

**.**

**.**

An hour past midnight, Rosalind meets Patrick Jane in a bar, and the latter seems oddly unsurprised to see her walking and seeing and doing everything just fine.

"You have to stop this," she tells him, her voice slightly hysterical. "I've tried _everything_."

Jane blinks once, and nods, his expression suddenly solemn and slightly crazy. "So that means he's Re-"

"I don't care what it means, just get him out of the CBI's art classes," Rosalind says, clutching his hand. "Last night he wouldn't join me in bed because he wanted to plan his course. He wanted to plan his course." She sounds and looks desperate. "_He wouldn't join me in bed_ because he wanted to_ plan his course_."

Jane rolls his eyes, schooling his expression back to carefree and maybe even a little mocking. "Yeah, I got it the first two times."

"So you'll help?" Rosalind whispers, and only then does she seem to realize that, God, her cover's been blown. "Uh-"

"It's okay," Jane says, waving his hand dismissively. "I already knew. Well, _suspected_, but-"

"Are you going to put me in jail?" She looks positively horrified.

"My priority at the moment is to get a crazed serial killer away from the CBI buildings, find a way to annul the art classes, and kill the aforementioned serial killer." He forces a small smile. "And, honestly, 'thank you for your help' doesn't even begin to describe my gratitude."

Rosalind nods, gives a wobbly smile, leaves the bar, and is never heard from again.

**.**

**.**

Three weeks after Red John got the job, Bret Stiles persuades him to follow him down the very menacing dungeons of Visualize, until they reach the one with a crying girl chained against the wall.

"Look what my men got for you!" Bret says, trying very hard to make his voice bright and cheery. "They didn't even sedate her! Go on! Fetch!"

He doesn't even look at the girl. "I'm sorry, old friend, but I have things to do. What do you think, should we study Abstractionism or should I just keep it in the Renaissance for the second semester?"

Bret stares, his mouth opening and closing without making a sound.

**.**

**.**

"This just can't keep happening," Lisbon says, despairing, watching as Mr Blythe screams out of his mind at a rookie who _dared_ to paint the foreground before the back. He looks as though he's about to take out a machine gun and blow her head off.

"You have to admit though," Jane says, leaning back in his chair, "fear does increase some of the students' acumen. Did you know that-"

"We're not students, Jane," Lisbon growls. "We're agents of the law, and this is beyond embarrassing! If Bertram was here, I'd-"

"Well, he isn't, and we're gonna have to figure this out on our own, right?"

"Why are we even here?" VanPelt sighs, running her hands through her hair. "Why don't we just arrest the guy? You know, for attacking officers of the law? I mean, this _can_ be called harassment, right?"

Jane shakes his head. "It's sad, really. My arch-nemesis has been reduced to a faux-elitist hipster in turtlenecks teaching CBI agents how to paint. Some days I just can't find it in me to try and kill him."

Lisbon's eyes widen. "What do you mean-"

"Oh, nothing, nothing. Back to your drawing, partner!"

"Teresa, dear!" Mr Blythe's voice makes Lisbon go completely still, her fingers clutching her desk so hard it looks like the wood might break. "We're doing life drawing tomorrow! Do you mind modeling?"

And the thought of Teresa Lisbon nude on a platform before a group of agents and Red John for academic purposes, is what finally makes Jane go all angry-birds on him and finally kill him.

**.**

**.**

"Well, I suppose it could have been worse," Lisbon says with a shrug, two years later. "I mean, he could have been wreaking havoc and murdering people left and right."

"He kinda did," Rigsby says. "Wreak havoc. I remember the CBI had to take money out of its computer systems fund to hire therapists for the agents attending the classes."

"All ended well, though," Jane says with a bright grin, bringing a spoonful of delicious fudge sundae to his mouth.

After that, the CBI agents made sure to never run out of impossible-to-solve-without-Jane cases.

**FIN**


End file.
